


Experimental Romance

by redglares_hot_butt



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redglares_hot_butt/pseuds/redglares_hot_butt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy is an accomplished researcher in experimental physics, and recently she's started to work with Jade on an exciting new project. In the course of their collaboration, Roxy has developed quite a crush on her new colleague. Dare she ask Jade out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experimental Romance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scrunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrunch/gifts).



"Ughhhh, I shouldn'ta quit drinking," Roxy groaned to herself, burying her head in her arms on her desk. Why hadn't anyone told her being a professor would be so much _work_? And not the fun kind - she wished she could just go down to her lab and tinker with her experiments without any other worries! But there were committee meetings to go to, grant proposals to write, and a huge pile of applications to read, and Roxy didn't particularly feel like doing any of those right now. 

But she had to - Roxy wasn't going to let herself down. She hadn't gotten this far by giving up when her responsibilities piled up too high. She was one of the hotshot young researchers in her area of condensed matter physics. Her research had wowed everyone so much that she'd been hired last year with much fanfare (and with full tenure) at a prestigious university with a great physics department.

So Roxy sat up with a grunt and took a sip of her coffee. She'd get through all of this annoying busywork now, and maybe vent about it to her friend Jane when they talked that evening. She started to flip through the stack of graduate school applications in front of her. There were plenty of applicants who were interested in joining her lab, and she wanted to make sure that she got the best students.

Roxy let her mind wander a bit as she skimmed through the pile of applications, picking out the more promising ones to look at more carefully. She didn't mind teaching, really, and especially not for more advanced students. She was actually pretty excited about advising graduate students. Right now her lab was pretty small, since she'd only just gotten started. She had one first-year graduate student, and a couple of undergraduate assistants. And of course, her postdoc - 

"Hey Roxy!" Jade Harley interrupted cheerfully, standing in the doorway of Roxy's office. Roxy looked up with a smile, and Jade grinned back. Jade was the other researcher in Roxy's lab. She had finished up graduate school not too long ago at a university across the Pacific, and Roxy had been very impressed when she heard about her accomplishments and her skills. So Roxy had pulled some strings to make sure that she could offer Jade a postdoctoral researcher position, and did everything she could to convince Jade to move across the world to work with her. And fortunately Jade had decided to go for it!

"What's up, Jadey?" Roxy said, taking another sip at her coffee. She couldn't help but giggle to herself. Jade always seemed to be energetic and excited, and her enthusiasm was infectious. It made her a great collaborator, as well as a good friend. And recently it had been setting Roxy's heart aflutter, together with Jade's cute grin and cute everything else. 

"Oh, we just got the new optical equipment delivered! So I'm gonna go get that set up with our lasers," Jade replied, motioning in the direction of their lab. Her long black hair swung around as she turned her head and swayed from side to side.

"Oh, awesome! Man, I wish I could come and help ya, but I'm up to my eyeballs in paperwork here," Roxy groaned, picking up one one of the stacks of applications on her desk. 

"Well, that sounds like fun," Jade said, sticking out her tongue and giggling. She then turned around and headed out of the office. "I'm gonna go get started! See ya, Rox! Maybe come down and check stuff out if you can take a break?" 

"Sure, in a little while," Roxy said, waving goodbye as Jade headed out of view. Roxy then leaned forward with a smile, resting her elbows on her desk and her hands on her face. Seeing Jade always brightened up her day, though Roxy hoped that the little crush she had been developing wasn't _too_ obvious. 

She really was going to have to ask Jade out one of these days. It was something she wasn't even willing to consider at first - after a few bad experiences in the past, Roxy had sworn off being romantically involved with other people in physics. And she wasn't even really sure if it would be considered acceptable for her to date a more junior researcher, even though Jade was only a few years younger than her. Fortunately her friend Jane had sleuthed out the relevant university policies and general ethics guidelines and decided that nothing would be an issue there. And Jade had mentioned some things about a past girlfriend, so there wasn't a worry that she wasn't into girls. After hearing that, Jane had decided that all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and been badgering Roxy to ask Jade out. Roxy had been slowly warming up to the idea.

Roxy sighed, and then took another sip of her coffee and went back to the stack of applications she had to review. Still, Roxy's thoughts lingered on Jade. Her glowing smile, her amiable personality, her enthusiasm about life, even her slight buck teeth and her unkempt hair... Roxy hadn't had a crush like this since back when she was a teenager, but Jade was just so damn _cute_ all of the time she couldn't help it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Roxy! Hopefully there's still some cookies left!" Jade skipped through the common room in the physics building. At this time in the afternoon, the department put out cookies and coffee, and the professors and students mingled together. Roxy had gotten there right on time to make sure she snagged her favorite cookies, and then chatted a bit with one of the other professors. She had just finished up her conversation when Jade appeared.

"Well there's some of the ones nobody wants! You gotta get here early and get the really good chocolate chip ones!" Roxy replied with a chuckle. Jade walked past and grabbed some of the remaining cookies, and shoved them into her mouth. Then she headed back over to Roxy.

"Yeah, well, I was busy! I was calibrating the lasers and the sensors, it takes a while," Jade replied, happily chomping on a gingerbread cookie. "I think I got it working, though! We should be able to start getting data soon." 

"Awesome! I'd love to come and see but I've got _another_ committee meeting to go to here," Roxy rolled her eyes. "But I'll check it out a bit later. Though, oh emm gee, this is really exciting! I think we're gonna be onto something really cool here!" 

"Yeah!" Jade replied, as the two of them moved to the hallway and walked back towards Roxy's office. "I mean, we've already figured out the hard stuff, we just need to get the experimental setup finished! And once we start running things we'll blow all of the other labs out of the water!" 

"Well, hopefully!" Roxy said. "Don't jinx it though. You never really know what's gonna happen. I mean, we totes _are_ the smartest, but..." 

"Yeah, I guess not," Jade said, though it didn't seem to dampen her excitement. "But it'll be cool once we have things up and running anyway! And it'll be nice to be a bit less busy." 

"Tell me about it," Roxy groaned. "I just wanna be able to sprawl out on the couch and relax like a normal person. Whatchu got planned when you have a bit more time?" 

"Oh, well," Jade said, hesitating for a moment and adjusting her round-framed glasses. "I was thinking of trying out dating, now that I'm kind of settled in with living here... It might be kind of nice to get back into that, and meet some cute people, and stuff." 

"Oh! I call being your first cutie!" Roxy said, her mouth moving faster than her brain. She almost immediately started kicking herself mentally. She'd been running over possible ways to ask Jade out for the last week or two, and the best she could do was _that_? God, Jade was probably going to hate her and think she was a creep. Or maybe she could play it off as a joke...

"Heh, are you asking me out?" Jade replied with a bit of a giggle, after what felt like forever. Roxy hesitated for a moment and looked at her friend, trying to decide what to do. She couldn't really read Jade's expression, but at least she didn't look disgusted by the idea? 

Roxy sighed, and decided to go with the truth. "Ummm, well, I guess I am," she said hesitantly. "I hope that isn't too weird... But you're a really great friend and so adorbs, wow."

It felt like ages before Jade responded, but then her blank look slowly shifted to a smile. "Yeah... I think I'd like that. You're pretty great too, Roxy. And definitely a cutie!" By that point Jade was grinning and had let out a bit of a giggle. 

"Aww, that'd be great," Roxy said. She felt like she should be happier, but right now all she could feel was relief from the panic from a moment before.

"Yeah!" Jade replied. The two of them reached Roxy's office, and Roxy turned to unlock her door and go in. Jade took the opportunity to lean in against Roxy, and brush her head against Roxy's shoulder. The affectionate gesture only lasted a moment, but made Roxy's heart jump. Jade then pulled away with a wide smile. "We'll figure out a time for our date later! But right now I've got some more finicky electronics to right with."

Roxy couldn't find any words to say, so she just waved and smiled. Jade returned the gesture, and then hurried off with her usual excitement. Roxy headed into her office and sat down, taking a moment to reflect on what had just happened. It didn't take long for her feelings to turn to euphoria. "Holy shit, that was amazing! And I'm amazing!" Roxy said to no one in particular, grinning as she looked at the clock. It was still fifteen minutes before the meeting she needed to go to - plenty of time to call Jane and gush about her upcoming date. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ugh! What the hell's wrong in here?" Jade grumbled, prodding at some electronics with the leads to her oscilloscope. It had been a few days since Roxy had asked her out, but the two of them had been much too busy to actually go on a date yet. They were in the final push to getting their experiment set up and starting to produce results - but of course, there were plenty of glitches to work out. 

"Ughh man, I hope we can figure out what it is soon," Roxy groaned, filling up the coffee machine again. The two of them had been here since the previous afternoon, working most of the night with a few breaks for naps, supported by adrenaline and caffeine. It probably wasn't the best decision, but they were so close to getting things working that they hadn't wanted to call it a day.

They'd both been furiously busy calibrating things, correcting mistakes in their setup, testing their hardware and software, and doing a few small sample runs of their experiment. After working through the night they had dealt with most of the issues, but at the moment there was something going on that was messing up the final output. They'd narrowed down the issue to one particular breadboard of electronics, and now Jade was inspecting it and comparing it to their schematics.

Roxy rubbed her bleary eyes and sipped at her coffee while Jade worked. She was glad that she wasn't the one having to deal with the fiddly electronics - at this point she was far too exhausted to do much more. But fortunately Jade was more awake, and apparently still able to focus and suss out the problem. Roxy looked on as Jade knelt next to the machinery, and couldn't help but find her intense focus pretty attractive. Perhaps it was her sleep-deprived state, but Roxy thought that Jade looked hotter than ever, even with her dirty lab coat, her oversized safety goggles, and her hair pulled out of the way into a messy ponytail.

Roxy sat there, staring blankly at her collaborator for a while. She wasn't sure how long it was before Jade triumphantly announced, "Aha! This stupid transistor isn't working!" She turned towards Roxy and held up a pair of needle-nose pliers that were gripping a small component. "Can you hand me a new one of the 2N3904 transistors?" 

"On it," Roxy said, feeling a bit of energy from Jade's announcement. She stretched out and headed to their electronics bench, and dug out the appropriate object. She brought it to Jade, who dutifully tested it and installed it in the place of the old one. Then Roxy went back to sink into her chair again as Jade did some more testing. 

"Okay! I think we're all set!" Jade said a few minutes later, snapping Roxy out of her new sleepy state. "I'm running our tests and they'll be done in an hour, and then if that goes well we can run the experiment overnight and see if what the data is like in the morning!" 

"Oh, awesome!" Roxy groaned and stood up. "What time is it now, even?" 

Jade glanced at her phone. "Two P.M! We've been here for 24 hours I guess, wow."

"Yeahhhhh," Roxy rubbed her eyes. "I think I'm gonna head home and crash for a while."

"Okay! I might take a bit of a nap myself," Jade said, followed by a yawn for emphasis. "But um, I was hoping you weren't gonna sleep for too long. I was thinking it might be nice if we could go out to dinner to celebrate! And we could make it into a date." 

"Oh, well," Roxy pondered it for a moment, feeling torn. "You know I really wanna go on a date with you soon, Jadey, but I was thinking we'd do it when we were a biiit less exhausted?" 

"Well, I guess," Jade pouted. "I just thought it would be fun. And um, it was really awesome working together here, and I kind of wanted to follow it up with something romantic..."

"Aww, don't be sad!" Roxy walked closer to Jade and put a hand on her shoulder. Even with how tired she was, a romantic evening with Jade really did sound wonderful. "Well... Okay! We can do it tonight if you want! When were you thinking?"

"Yay!" Jade's expression turned to a grin, and she embraced Roxy with a tight hug. Roxy gasped from being squeezed, but then reciprocated, and lay her head down on Jade's shoulder. Jade nuzzled up against her, and continued, "How about at eight?" 

"Mmm, alright," Roxy replied, enjoying the opportunity to lean against Jade in her tired state. And fortunately Jade was plenty strong to hold her up. "Can you call me at like, seven? Since I doubt I'll be awake then otherwise." 

"Sure! Since oof, you feel pretty tired here," Jade responded playfully, pushing Roxy back upright. Roxy smiled and straightened up, and the two let go of each other. "Anyway you go and get some sleep! I'll finish up here and get ready for tonight."

"Awesome, thanks babe," Roxy replied, smiling to herself as she gathered her things and headed out towards her nice, warm bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roxy rubbed her eyes and sipped at her glass of water. Jade had indeed woken her up at the requested time, and she had sleepily gotten herself ready for the date. Roxy had picked up Jade and driven to a restaurant she liked, just far enough away from campus that undergrads didn't usually go there. Her nap had helped, but she was still pretty exhausted.

But it was totally worth it. Even her tired state couldn't wipe the smile off her face. Roxy looked across the table at Jade, who grinned back as she fiddled with her silverware. Jade had cleaned herself up and was wearing a cute blue dress, and Roxy couldn't help but swoon at how adorable she was. And Roxy felt like she was far more excited than a grown woman should be to have a quick hug in the parking lot, or to hold hands while they waited for a table. 

"Sooooo, you were saying you've been feeling more settled in here, now?" Roxy said, deciding not to let the silence linger for too long. 

"Yeah! It's pretty nice here. Different, but not bad!" Jade replied cheerfully.

"What was it like where you grew up? Where was that, anyway?" Roxy remembered that Jade had mentioned some things about her past, but she'd never gotten a clear picture.

"Oh, well, it's kind of weird actually! So I lived with my granddad on this private island he owned when I was a kid."

"Whoaaaaaa, what?" Roxy asked in disbelief. "Holy shit, a private island?" 

"Yeah," Jade responded. "He was kind of a big deal I guess? And a pretty odd guy. Anyway it was kind of nice, though it was a big shock to move around other people." 

"Damn, I can imagine."

"Yep! I got used to it eventually though. And then it was been a pretty big change coming around the world to here, but not so bad compared to that," Jade continued. "It was pretty exciting to move somewhere new!" 

"Yeah," Roxy replied with a bit of a giggle. "Heh, I guess I've never really gone too far - I've just been around the country for academic stuff."

"Well that's still pretty cool! I kind of like it here," Jade replied with a grin. "I've never really lived around a big city like this before! There's so much to do." 

"Mhmm. Maybe you should show me sometime, I'm usually pretty boring and sit around on my ass too much," Roxy sighed.

"Aww! Sure, maybe for another date we can go into the city and do some stuff?" Jade grinned eagerly.

"Yeah! I'd love that. Well, when I've caught up on sleep," Roxy replied, stifling a yawn.

Jade kept up a lively conversation throughout the meal, though at times Roxy found herself struggling to pay attention and not get lost in staring at Jade. When their food came, Jade tore through her meal. Roxy poked at hers some, but didn't feel so hungry in her tired state. However, she changed her position a bit when they got a dessert to share - at least she could still appreciate sugar!

And soon enough the date came to an end. Roxy and Jade held hands and leaned close to each other as they made their way to Roxy's car, and then they drove to Jade's apartment. Roxy pulled up out front and sighed happily. "Well that was hella fun, Jadey! I hope we can do that again soon, maybe when we're a bit less tired." 

"Aww, sure thing! That was pretty great," Jade said from the passenger seat with a smile. "I'd invite you in to hang out and snuggle a bit but... I think we'd both fall asleep right away!" 

"Oh," Roxy blushed, the idea of an invitation having not crossed her mind. Cuddling with Jade sounded pretty appealing. "Yeah, that would be pretty nice, hopefully we can do that soon! Heheh, not that I'd mind falling asleep in your arms." 

"Aww, that's cute," Jade giggled. She then leaned over and planted a quick kiss on Roxy's cheek, before pulling back with a wide smile and a bit of a blush. Roxy turned to face her, pleasantly surprised, and Jade leaned in to kiss her on the lips. 

That kiss lingered for much longer, and Jade reached around to hug Roxy as they both closed their eyes. Roxy did the same, though the in-car embrace was a bit awkward. The kiss, though, was wonderful, and Roxy savored the sensations as much as she could. 

After a little while, Jade pulled back again, still smiling but this time looking satisfied with herself. "Mmm, that was nice. Anyway, I'm gonna go hit the hay - see you tomorrow, Roxy!" And with that she opened the car door and started to climb out.

"Wow, um, yeah. See you tomorrow," Roxy found it hard to put together much to say after that. She smiled and waved goodbye as Jade closed the door and headed off. Roxy closed her eyes for a moment to relive what just happened. Then she stretched out and started to drive home, ready to go back to bed, but with plenty of wonderful things to dream about. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Roxy found herself in a familiar position, in her office with a large coffee and some more graduate student applications to read. She worked as diligently as she could, but it was hard to keep her mind from wandering. She wondered how the experiment was going - if all went well overnight, it should have produced some interesting preliminary data. And even more than that, Roxy thought about Jade. What did she think about last night? Did she enjoy the date and the kiss as much as Roxy had? Or was she starting to have second thoughts? 

Roxy was just about halfway through the stack of applications when Jade came barging into her office to answer both of Roxy's questions. She swung the door closed and strode over to Roxy's desk, excitedly shoving some printouts of graphs at her. "Roxy! Look!" 

"Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting to get that good of data on our first try!" Roxy stared at the output of their experiment in disbelief. "Damn, no one else has actually picked up a statistically significant measurement of _that_!" 

"I know! It's awesome!" Jade replied enthusiastically. Roxy rolled her chair back from her desk a bit, and before she knew it she found that that Jade had plopped down in her lap. She wrapped her arms around Roxy and leaned in to excitedly whisper, "So you think we'll get a Nobel prize?" 

Roxy chuckled and returned the hug. "Oof! And geez, I wouldn't go that far, at least not yet. But we can totes get an awesome paper in Nature or Science! And with all of the other stuff we've got planned to try, there'll probably be some more of those." 

"Sheesh, I was just kidding!" Jade said, sticking her tongue out. "But yeah, this will be really great! And I'm pretty pumped to keep working on this stuff alongside my adorable girlfriend!" Before Roxy could respond, Jade leaned in to kiss her on the lips. 

"Mmph," Roxy tried to say something but found herself muffled by Jade. So instead she kissed back enthusiastically, glancing over to make sure the door to her office was closed so no one could see. After a moment it became clear that Jade wasn't planning on ending the kiss anytime soon, so Roxy closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her mind was full of things she wanted to test or analyze about their experiment, but those could wait for a moment. For now all she wanted to think about was the girl sitting on her lap.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was close enough to what you were looking for! Sorry if you were looking for a more exciting sci-fi sort of scenario, but I figured I'd use my experience as a STEM grad student to write something that was more of a reasonable approximation of how academia actually is. :P


End file.
